This little corner of my yard may not look like much, but maybe that’s kind of the point for now. This year, I’ve finally moved onto this part of home ownership I’m most excited about: creating backyard habitat. Over the last few weeks, I had help from my neighbors (tree trimmers) to transplant some young sweet gum trees that got a little too big for me to handle. Unfortunately, despite watering daily, they are in transplant shock and most of the leaves have died. There are plenty more where they came from, given the neighbors’ yards have big trees, so I’ll try not to be too attached to an outcome if they don’t make it. I always knew it was a bit of an experiment trying to transplant trees this month anyway, and those needed to come away from the house; I just wanted to give them a shot at growing instead of removing them. I didn’t notice another bigger young sweet gum (a testament to the overgrowth next to my house) that I might have asked them to take a shot at moving for me had I seen it in time. Instead, I tried to dig it up myself, and seeing how the transplant experiment has gone so far, I didn’t feel confident trying to plant it.
That and 2 other small saplings have been sadly added to the brush pile…but again, I still have plenty of other tiny trees to find a home for. Speaking of “brush pile” I moved some old wood left by the previous homeowner and unsurprisingly found lots of ants. I assume they’re carpenter ants from the tunnels left in the damp wood, but I’d have to brush up on my ant ID skills to be sure, I guess.
So far, it looks like 2 other small sweet gums I moved have been doing well, as have the 2 little red maples and a black cherry. Pictured below, though, is a black cherry sapling springing up at the base of a grove of sweet gums. I was most excited today to watch a red-spotted admiral flitting around the young tree laying eggs.
I stood very still, and eventually, she landed on a leaf right under my nose! She was so close to my face I could hear her moving on the leaf. I watched her lay an egg, and when she flew off, there was a tiny glistening freshly laid egg at the leaf tip. I can’t wait to look for caterpillars in the coming week!
Bonus: today was also the first day I saw a hummingbird use the little feeder I setup!
